Method for estimating quantization factor of compressed digital image

ABSTRACT

An estimation system provides quality measure of a given image for image/video applications to determine if the image needs to be enhanced or not. The system systemically measures the image quality by estimating quantization parameter of the compressed digital image. This allows estimating the image quantization parameter effectively in the pixel domain. Because block artifact are caused by image compression transforms, especially in flat image region, the estimation system first detects the suspicious regions of the image for the block artifacts by calculating a variance for each location in the image. Next, noise power is computed by using the detected regions. Then, the estimated noise power is compared with the statistical model to calculate the quantization parameter that is used in the encoder side when the input image is compressed. Finally, a quantization parameter is used as a quality measure of the input image.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to digital image processing, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for systemically measuring the image quality by estimating quantization parameter of the compressed digital image.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Block artifacts are due to the information loss of high frequency energy, and appear as sharp discontinuities over the entire image especially on a relatively flat background. The information loss of an original image is due to the quantization process when the image is compressed, and the quantization noise is proportional to quantization size. If the quantization size (scale or parameter) is known, the presented artifacts including block and ringing effects can be effectively reduced or removed. Unfortunately, a decoded image of the compressed input does not provide the information to the consumer products particularly in Television. Conventional systems typically use the quantization parameter obtained directly from a decoder, and apply it to estimate some measures according to their applications. However, the compression information such as quantization of a decoded image is not available in the decoded image.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the present invention to provide the quality measure of a given image for image/video applications to determine if the image needs to be enhanced or not.

In one embodiment the present invention provides a method and system for systemically measuring the image quality by estimating quantization parameter of the compressed digital image. This allows estimating the image quantization parameter effectively in the pixel domain.

Generally, block artifact are caused by image compression transforms, especially in flat image region. As such, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, first the suspicious regions of the image for the block artifacts are detected by calculating a variance for each location in the image. Next, noise power is computed by using the detected regions. Then, the estimated noise power is compared with the statistical model to calculate the quantization parameter that is used in the encoder side when the input image is compressed. Finally, a quantization parameter is used as a quality measure of the input image.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a method to estimate the quantization parameter effectively in the pixel domain.

These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become understood with reference to the following description, appended claims and accompanying figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a functional block diagram of an embodiment of an image processing system implementing an image processing, according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a functional block diagram of an embodiment of quantization parameter estimation, according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a functional block diagram of an embodiment of flat region detection, according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of example steps implemented in the strong edge detector of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of example steps implemented in the noise power calculator of FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 shows the relationship between quantization decision and reconstruction levels.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

To better understand the present invention, in the following initially a theoretical background to picture quality indicating based on MPEG bitstream parameters, in particular quantization parameters, is provided.

It is assumed that the noise being estimated is due to discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient quantization in the MPEG coding process. Block artifacts are due to the information loss of high frequency energy, and appear as sharp discontinuities over the entire image especially on a relatively flat background. The information loss of an original image is due to the quantization process when the image is compressed, and the quantization noise is proportional to quantization size. If the quantization size (scale or parameter) is known, the presented artifacts including block and ringing effects can be effectively reduced or removed. Unfortunately, a decoded image of the compressed input does not provide the information to the consumer products particularly in Television.

As such, in one embodiment the present invention provides a method to estimate the quantization parameter effectively in the pixel domain. The quantization noise power is estimated in the pixel domain. The first point to establish is that, for a transform-based compression scheme such as MPEG, this is equivalent to estimating the noise power in the transformed coefficient domain. Because the transform is orthogonal, Parserval's theorem can be invoked to show that the noise power in one domain is directly proportional to the noise power in the other domain, provided factors such as the quantization weighting matrices are taken into account correctly.

In one example implementation of the method of the present invention, first the suspicious regions of the image for the block artifacts are detected by calculating a variance for each location in the image. Next, noise power is computed by using the detected regions. Then, the estimated noise power is compared with the statistical model to calculate the quantization parameter that is used in the encoder side when the input image is compressed. Finally, a quantization parameter is used as a quality measure of the input image.

As such, a method of systemically measuring the image quality according to the present invention estimates quantization level (scale) for a decoded digital image in the pixel domain without any prior knowledge of the original compressed image. The present invention utilizes the Parserval's theory which states that the noise power in one domain is directly proportional to the noise power in the other domain.

Color video signals usually comprise three color channels, these being one luminance (Y) channel and two chrominance (U, V) channels. Generally, quantization parameter estimation is only required to be performed on the luminance channel. Conventional systems typically utilize eight bits to represent the Y value due to bandwidth efficiency and memory design considerations. Therefore, conventional image processing systems assign each pixel a Y value somewhere in the range of 0 to 255, with 0 representing the darkest luminance and 255 representing the brightest luminance.

Applying the method of the present invention on the chrominance channels (U, V) have little or no noticeable effect on estimating a quantization parameter. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an example image processing system 10 which implements an embodiment of the method of the present invention. The decoded luminance data is read in from a buffer in an input image processor 100 to an image enhancer 102. The enhancer 102 improves the input data based on output of a parameter estimator 106 which estimates a quantization parameter, according to an embodiment of the present invention. The filtered luminance data from the enhancer 102 is provided to an output processing module 104 for combining with the decoded data from the two chrominance channels before being displayed.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the quantization parameter estimator 106, comprising a flat region detector 200, a noise power calculator 202, and a parameter estimator 204. In particular, the flat region detector 200 first finds strong edges or texture regions in the image and then excludes those regions to generate relatively homogeneous regions. An example implementation of this process is shown in FIG. 3. The block artifacts caused by image compression are more significant in the homogeneous areas. A strong edge detector 300 processes the input signal YIN according to the following steps 1-4 as shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4:

-   -   1.The input signal Y_(IN) is low-pass filtered with using a n×m         window at each pixel location (x, y) to generate a filtered         signal Y_(L) according to relation (1): $\begin{matrix}         {{Y_{L}\left( {x,y} \right)} = {\frac{1}{n \times m} \cdot {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{n - 1}{\sum\limits_{j = 0}^{m - 1}{{Y_{IN}\left( {{x + i},{y + j}} \right)}.}}}}} & (1)         \end{matrix}$     -   2. Next, commonly used four directional sobel operators are         performed on the low-pass-filtered image Y_(L)(x, y) to find         image edges Y_(H) according to relation (2): $\begin{matrix}         {{Y_{H}\left( {x,y} \right)} = {\frac{1}{4}{\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{4}{\sum\limits_{i = {- 1}}^{1}{\sum\limits_{j = {- 1}}^{1}{{{abs}\left( {{M_{k}\left( {i,j} \right)} \cdot {Y_{L}\left( {{x + i},{y + j}} \right)}} \right)}.}}}}}} & (2)         \end{matrix}$         -   wherein, abs(·) indicates an absolute value of (·),             M_(k)(i,j) is the k^(th) sobel operator according to             relation set (3) below, wherein each sobel operator/filter             is used to obtain edge information: $\begin{matrix}             {{{M_{1}\left( {i,j} \right)} = \begin{bmatrix}             1 & 0 & {- 1} \\             1 & 0 & {- 1} \\             1 & 0 & {- 1}             \end{bmatrix}},{{M_{2}\left( {i,j} \right)} = \begin{bmatrix}             1 & 1 & 1 \\             0 & 0 & 0 \\             {- 1} & {- 1} & {- 1}             \end{bmatrix}},{{M_{3}\left( {i,j} \right)} = \begin{bmatrix}             1 & 1 & 0 \\             1 & 0 & {- 1} \\             0 & {- 1} & {- 1}             \end{bmatrix}},{{{and}\quad{M_{4}\left( {i,j} \right)}} = {\begin{bmatrix}             0 & {- 1} & {- 1} \\             1 & 0 & {- 1} \\             1 & 1 & 0             \end{bmatrix}.}}} & (3)             \end{matrix}$     -   3. Obtain a binary map Y_(B) using a threshold with a user         defined value τ according to relation (4): $\begin{matrix}         {{Y_{B}\left( {x,y} \right)} = \left\{ \begin{matrix}         1 & {{{{if}\quad{Y_{H}\left( {x,y} \right)}} > \tau},} \\         0 & {{otherwise}.}         \end{matrix} \right.} & (4)         \end{matrix}$

Then, morphological operation opening (i.e., an erosion followed by a dilation) is performed in order to remove small spots caused by noisy information of the original input and refine the edge regions to obtain refined edge regions Y_(M)(x,y).

-   -   4. Finally, a flat region binary map is obtained by inversing         the refined edge binary map as the in inverter 302 (FIG. 3)         according to relation (5) to obtain flat region map from edge         map:         Y _(B)(x,y)=1−Y _(M)(x,y),   (5)         -   wherein a flat region data Y₁ is further obtained by             multiplying the original input Y_(IN) and the flat region             binary map Y _(B)(x,y) (i.e., Y₁=Y_(IN)· Y _(B)(x,y)).             Therefore, Y₁ output from the flat region detector 200             indicates only flat areas in the input image Y_(IN).

Referring back to FIG. 2, the noise power calculator 202 receives the flat region data signal Y₁ and generates noise power Y₂ around the block boundaries where the block artifacts are significant. To calculate the noise power Y₂, the noise power calculator 202 performs the following steps 5-9 shown in FIG. 5:

-   -   5. Separate the image represented by the flat region data signal         Y₁ into non-overlapped blocks of pixels. In the MPEG, the block         size is 8×8.     -   6. For computation simplicity, we denote the flat region Y₁(x,y)         signal as M_(F)×N_(F) rectangular area for xε[1,M_(F)] and         yε[1,N_(F)], and calculate a differencing signal Y_(1h) between         neighboring pixels in each block along each horizontal line         according to relation (6):         Y _(1h)(x,y)=Y ₁(x,y)−Y ₁(x,y−1) for yε[1, N _(F)−1].   (6)     -   7. Compute an average B_(h) of said differences Y_(1h) across         the block boundaries along the horizontal direction is estimated         according to relation (7): $\begin{matrix}         {B_{h} = {\frac{1}{M_{F}\left( {{〚{N_{F}/8}〛} - 1} \right)}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{M_{F}}{\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{N_{F} - 1}{{Y_{1h}\left( {i,{8j}} \right)}}}}}} & (7)         \end{matrix}$     -   where, [·] is rounding operator.     -   8. Similar to steps 5-7, calculate a vertical average B_(v) from         differencing signal Y_(1v) between neighboring pixels in each         block along each vertical line to obtain the vertical average         difference value along the vertical boundaries of the image.     -   9. Generate the noise power Y₂ as         $Y_{2} = \frac{B_{h} + B_{v}}{2}$         and provide to the Q parameter estimator 204.

It is known that the quantization noise power from a linear quantizer of spacing q in a uniformly distributed signal according to relation (8): $\begin{matrix} {\sigma_{N}^{2} = {{\frac{1}{q} \cdot {\int_{- \frac{q}{2}}^{\frac{q}{2}}{x^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}x}}}} = {\frac{q^{2}}{12}.}}} & (8) \end{matrix}$

Where x is an input signal. In MPEG coding, the signal comprises DCT coefficients and, apart from the intra DC coefficient, has a highly non-uniform probability distribution. The simple expression for the quantization noise power, therefore, is replaced by the general relation (10) for each coefficient as: $\begin{matrix} {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{M}{\frac{1}{d_{i + 1} - d_{i}} \cdot {\int_{d_{i}}^{d_{i + 1}}{{p(x)}\left( {x - r_{i}} \right)^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}x}}}}} & (10) \end{matrix}$ where, d_(i), i=1 . . . M are the quantizer decision levels, r_(i) are the corresponding reconstruction levels (with d_(i)<=r_(i)<=d_(i+1)) and p(x) is the probability density function of the input signal x, here assumed to be a continuous function. FIG. 6 shows an example step graph 600 which represents the relationship between quantization decision and reconstruction levels. The vertical axis represents the reconstructed values r_(i) while the horizontal axis shows the quantizer decision level d_(i) spaced by a quantization step size q. For an example, when a continuous signal x is input and if the value is in the range between d_(i)−q/2 and d_(i)+q/2, then the decision value is d_(i) and the reconstructed value is r_(i) as shown by step graph 600 in FIG. 6.

If the quantizer has 2N+1 uniformly spaced reconstruction levels centered on zero (as defined, for example, in the MPEG specification for intra coefficients) and has a decision threshold offset parameter L (L=0 corresponds to truncation and L=1 to rounding), then the expression for the quantization noise power σ_(N) ² is according to relation (11) below: $\begin{matrix} {\sigma_{N}^{2} = {{2\left\lbrack {{\int_{0}^{{({1 - {L/2}})}q}{{p(x)}x\quad{\mathbb{d}x}}} + {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{\frac{1}{q}{\int_{{({i - {L/2}})}q}^{{({i + 1 - {L/2}})}q}{{p(x)}\left( {x - {iq}} \right)^{2}\quad{\mathbb{d}x}}}}}} \right\rbrack}.}} & (11) \end{matrix}$ Relation (11) above depends only on three quantities:

-   -   i. The quantizer level spacing q, which is known from the         quantizer scale and is estimated according to the present         invention.     -   ii. The decision threshold offset parameter L. This is not known         but it is reasonable to suppose that it takes the compromise         value 0.75 in the case of intra coding, as defined in the MPEG         Test Model.     -   iii. The probability distribution p(x) of the input signal.

It follows that the quantization scale can be estimated if the shape of the probability distribution of the input signal and noise power can be found. That information is not directly available, but in principle possible to be estimated from the reconstructed signal at the output of the inverse quantizer.

In image processing theory it is common to model the probability distribution of a signal such as a particular DCT coefficient, by a function specified by one or two parameters. For example, the Laplacian, or two-sided exponential distribution, is often used: ${p(x)} = {\frac{\alpha}{2}{{\mathbb{e}}^{{- \alpha}{x}}.}}$

The shape of the distribution is determined by the single parameter a. If this parameter can be estimated from the decoded DCT coefficients, the quantization parameter q can be calculated because the noise power Y₂ can be used as an alternative noise power based on the Parserval's theorem. Indeed, the noise power in the DCT domain is according to relation (12): $\begin{matrix} {\sigma_{N}^{2} = {\frac{2}{\alpha^{2}} - {\frac{q \cdot {\mathbb{e}}^{\alpha \cdot {q{({\frac{L}{2} - 1})}}}}{\alpha\left( {1 - {\mathbb{e}}^{{- \alpha} \cdot q}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\alpha \cdot {q\left( {1 - L} \right)}} + 2} \right\rbrack}}} & (12) \end{matrix}$

wherein the parameter a depends on the activity of the original picture (image) or prediction error signal at the spatial frequency represented by the particular DCT coefficient under consideration. In principle, source picture (material) might exhibit different levels of activity at different frequencies. In practice, however, it is found that there is a degree of interdependence between the activity levels across the spectrum. This is not surprising if it is observed that features that contribute to high activity, such as edges, have energy over a wide range of spatial frequencies.

It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that large variations possible in the shapes of the probability distributions for all the DCT coefficients can be parameterized by a single quantity which describes the overall activity of the source. Then, the quantization parameter q can be estimated from this single ‘activity’ parameter α together with the noise power. In practice, for example, α is assigned to 0.08.

According to the present invention, the estimated noise power Y₂ in noise power calculator 202 (FIG. 2) can replace actual noise power in the DCT domain σ_(N) ² according to relation (13): σ_(N) ² =η·Y ₂ ².   (13)

Then, estimating the quantization parameter q involves minimizing the value represented by relation (14): $\begin{matrix} {q = {\underset{q}{\arg\quad\min}{\left( {\sigma_{N}^{2} - \frac{2}{\alpha^{2}} + {\frac{q \cdot {\mathbb{e}}^{\alpha \cdot {q{({\frac{L}{2} - 1})}}}}{\alpha\left( {1 - {\mathbb{e}}^{{- \alpha} \cdot q}} \right)}\left\lbrack {{\alpha \cdot {q\left( {1 - L} \right)}} + 2} \right\rbrack}} \right).}}} & (14) \end{matrix}$

Relation (14) provides the procedure to minimize the error between the noise power obtained from the previous procedures and the theoretical equation for estimating q.

However, the quantization parameter may be calculated recursively. Therefore, an alternative calculation for fast processing, such as real-time applications, can be according to relation (15): $\begin{matrix} {\sigma_{N}^{2} = {\left( {\beta \cdot Y_{2}^{2}} \right) = {\frac{q^{2}}{12}.}}} & (15) \end{matrix}$

Where, β is predefined constant based on empirical results. In practice, as a reference value of the constant β, one can set it to 1.234.

While the present invention is susceptible of embodiments in many different forms, these are shown in the drawings and have herein been described in detail, preferred embodiments of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the broad aspects of the invention to the embodiments illustrated. The aforementioned example architectures above according to the present invention can be implemented in many ways, such as program instructions for execution by a processor, as logic circuits, as ASIC, as firmware, etc., as is known to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the example embodiments described herein.

The present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain preferred versions thereof; however, other versions are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the preferred versions contained herein. 

1. A method for estimating quantization factor of a compressed digital input image encoded by an encoder, comprising the steps of: detecting regions of the input image susceptible to having block artifacts; estimating noise power based on the detected regions; comparing the estimated noise power with a statistical model to determine the quantization parameter used in the encoder when the input image is compressed; and providing the quantization parameter as a quality measure of the input image.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of determining an enhancement process for the image based on the quantization parameter.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of detecting block artifact regions of the image further includes the steps of detecting regions of the input image susceptible to having block artifacts as a function of a variance for each location in the image.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of detecting block artifact regions of the image further includes the steps of detecting flat regions in the input image.
 5. The method of claim 4 wherein the steps of detecting flat regions in the input image further includes the steps of finding strong edges or texture regions in the image.
 6. The method of claim 5 further comprising the steps of excluding the strong edges or texture regions from the image to generate essentially homogeneous regions.
 7. The method of claim 6 wherein the steps of finding and excluding strong edges or texture regions in the image further includes the steps of: performing low-pass filtering on the input image signal Y_(IN) using a n×m window at each pixel location (x, y) to generate a filtered signal Y_(L); applying four directional sobel filtering operators to the filtered image Y_(L) to find image edges Y_(H), each directional filter providing an edge location along the direction; obtaining a binary map Y_(B) based on the image edges Y_(H) using a threshold applying a threshold value τ; removing spots caused by noisy information of the original image and refinishing the edges to obtain refined edge regions Y_(M); generating a flat binary map Y _(B) as a function of the refined edge regions Y_(M); generating flat region data Y₁ by multiplying the original input Y_(IN) and the flat region binary map Y _(B)(x,y) indicating only flat areas in the input image Y_(IN).
 8. The method of claim 7 wherein the steps of estimating noise power based on the detected regions further includes the steps of: separating the image represented by the flat region data signal Y₁ into non-overlapped blocks of pixels; denoting the flat region Y₁(x,y) signal as M_(F)×N_(F) rectangular area for x ε[1,M_(F)] and y ε[1,N_(F)], and calculating a differencing signal Y_(1h) between neighboring pixels in each block along each horizontal line; computing an average B_(h) of said differences Y_(1h) across the block boundaries along the horizontal direction; calculating a differencing signal Y_(1v) between neighboring pixels in each block along each vertical line; computing an average B_(v) of said differences Y_(1v) across the block boundaries along the vertical direction; and estimating the noise power Y₂ as a function of B_(h) and B_(v).
 9. An image enhancement system comprising: a quantization estimator for estimating quantization factor of a compressed digital input image encoded by an encoder, the quantization estimator including: a detector for detecting regions of the input image susceptible to having block artifacts; a noise power estimator for estimating noise power based on the detected regions; a quantization parameter estimator for comparing the estimated noise power with a statistical model to determine the quantization parameter used in the encoder when the input image is compressed; wherein the quantization estimator outputs the quantization parameter as a quality measure of the input image.
 10. The system of claim 9 further comprising an enhancer than enhances the image based on the quantization parameter.
 11. The system of claim 9 wherein the detectors further detects regions of the input image susceptible to having block artifacts as a function of a variance for each location in the image.
 12. The system of claim 9 wherein the detectors further blocking block artifact regions of the image further by detecting flat regions in the input image.
 13. The system of claim 12 wherein the detector further finds strong edges or texture regions in the image.
 14. The system of claim 13 wherein the detector further excludes the strong edges or texture regions from the image to generate essentially homogeneous regions.
 15. The system of claim 14 wherein the detector finds and excludes strong edges or texture regions in the image by: performing low-pass filtering on the input image signal Y_(IN) using a n×m window at each pixel location (x, y) to generate a filtered signal Y_(L); applying four directional sobel operators to the filtered image Y_(L) to find image edges Y_(H); obtaining a binary map Y_(B) based on the image edges Y_(H) using a threshold applying a threshold value τ; removing spots caused by noisy information of the original image and refinishing the edges to obtain refined edge regions Y_(M); generating a flat binary map Y _(B) as a function of the refined edge regions Y_(M); generating flat region data Y₁ by multiplying the original input Y_(IN) and the flat region binary map Y _(B)(x,y) indicating only flat areas in the input image Y_(IN).
 16. The system of claim 15 wherein the noise power estimator estimates noise power based on the detected regions by: separating the image represented by the flat region data signal Y₁ into non-overlapped blocks of pixels; denoting the flat region Y₁(x,y) signal as M_(F)×N_(F) rectangular area for x εE[1,M_(F)] and y ε[1,N_(F)], and calculating a differencing signal Y_(1h) between neighboring pixels in each block along each horizontal line; computing an average B_(h) of said differences Y_(1h) across the block boundaries along the horizontal direction; calculating a differencing signal Y_(1v) between neighboring pixels in each block along each vertical line; computing an average B_(v) of said differences Y_(1v) across the block boundaries along the vertical direction; and estimating the noise power Y₂ as a function of B_(h) and B_(v). 